Trust Me
by Gallifrey Immigrant
Summary: If you leave this room, you will die. [If you stay in that room, you'll die.]


Gather around, children. Let me tell you a story about Christmas, and our village.

At the royal court of the Old Country, we were once all in fairy-tale bliss. It was a sweet time, where no man or woman felt any anger, sadness, or pain. In fact, the populace never left their houses for food, or water. All they needed to survive was in the specially delivered food of the Santa Claus.

Then the Valeyard came to our town.

[Those are lies. My name is the Doctor. In theso-called royal court of the Ancient country, you were all in absolute mental zombification. The populace never left their houses due to the effects of the "food" that was delivered to them. They had no imagination in them. And the man who delivered it wasn't Santa Klaus, but the Krampus]

The Valeyard said that our place in the timeline was out of balance. That no planet deserved to be so happy, so progressive—it could pose a threat to him in the future.

[Threat? You people were vegetables. Your buildings were dilapidated beyond repair. Sewage mains overflowing from no maintenance. Streets looking blacker than an oil spill. And a constant storm that never ceased, probably due to a bad climate-manipulation experiment. Or a very efficient climate-maipulation weapon. From what I could tell, you had been through a horrific war. In an attempt to have peace, one of the warring sides—which one really no longer matters—tried to get assistance from monsters in another dimension. And the Krampus replied back]

To destroy us, The Valeyard sent his servant, (who said her name was Clara, though she might have been lying), among us to sow dissent. She told us that Santa wasn't real, that the food we were being given was bad for us. When young Tom stuck up for Santa, she ridiculed him for his belief in front of everyone. Made him cry. Well, that was too far, so we told the Valeyard and his minion to take their black pointy hats and coats and leave. When the Valeyard realized his devilish tricks wouldn't work on us, he snarled at us that he would destroy Santa, then.

[I do not wear black! Why would I do that, when I own rather fabulous colorful coat, mind you? Now where was I? ...Ah yes. Well, it's true, when I found all those people hooked up to machinery, I tried to get Mel, who is rather good with computers, to communicate and get you people off that machine. The system kept on rejecting her input. Then Mel pointed out that no children seemed to be amoung the people frozen in the pods. So we looked into the libraries. Went into the history books. What we saw horrified even me. Remember how I said you were in a war? Well, when your people asked Krampus for peace, he simply pointed out that war comes from evil people. And the best way to deal with evil people, according to him, is to nip them in the bud—while they're naughty children. ]

Are you listening? You seem to be drifting off. As I was saying, the Valeyard ad Clara attacked the citadel where Santa lived. He tried to broker peace with the Valeyard, but the alien ignored all attempts at peace. Many of us were afraid that the food shipments would cease, but Santa still found a way to come through. The Valeyard used his box to attempt to teleport into Santa's citadel, but Santa's elves fought him off every time. Clara tried to sweet-talk her way in, but Santa didn't fall for her wide-eyed smiles. Santa protected us, but even the air became colder as the fighting went on.

[ The air became colder because the Krampus' hold on you was begenning to weaken, and your body began to sense the effects of the cryogenic chamber. Mel and I fought our way through the Krampus's lair for many days. Humans that he had fully corrupted—I would never call those poor things elves, because I've seen Father Christmas's actual elves, and they were much more charming that the Krampus's—tried to throw us off the cliffs, or even place us in the same chambers they put you in. You see, the Krampus devised a system to rate how much "evil" each child alive at that moment had in his genetic structure. Take away the men and woman who were likely to go to war, and you would have less war. Above 50% or so, he took the child away, and placed him or her in his chamber. He would derive nutrition from these children's bio-functions, while keeping them alive in a virtual hallucination. Absolutely barbaric. Why did people even agree? Well, it had been hundreds of years of war. People were afraid. So they agreed. Though it's my suspicion that a lot of people didn't agree. But, it's the winners—aka, the Krampus, who wrote the history books. ]

Finally, the Valeyard was face-to-face with Santa. Santa tried to have one last peace negotiation. The Valeyard seemed to agree to terms at first, but then killed Santa in cold blood. Then there was no one to stop the Valeyard. The Valeyard and Clara laughed as the pillars of our society fell to pieces. We had to hide, but there was no place to run. The Old Country was dead.

[After seeing all that the Krampus had wrought, I honestly was quite infuriated with the monster. I tried to give him some form of peace terms, perhaps a way for him to gain nutrition without stealing young children's lives or futures. But the horned creature shook its furry head, and clearly showed no remorse. He told me, in a rather deep voice, that a world at war with itself deserved a creature like him. He said that, at some point, every society fell into eternal collapse. I pointed out that how erroneous and elitist his assumptions were; after all, my home planet hadn't destroyed itself in the end, despite all its troubles. He only laughed. I didn't get to ask him what was so funny, as my conversation had sufficiently stalled him enough that Mel was able to us reverse engineer tech to send him back to his dimension. There's a high probability that the trip might have destroyed him, and maybe I should had more perseverance in finding a peaceful solution...but forgive me if the images of rows of adults crammed into cryogenic chambers made for children's sizes somewhat muted my natural affinity for pacifism.]

But Santa left us one final present. As long as we stay in the cottage, and do not open the doors, there are certain special temporal blocks that will keep the Valeyard and Clara out. The blocks are made from an advanced version of the "temporal grace" that used to be in the Valeyard's box. They cannot reach us, nor hurt us, while we stay in these cottages. But they will try to use anything they can to make us leave. Beware, for the Valeyard has the memories of his past selves, and can imitate them very well. Don't think just because he can spin a detailed story, that the details make it true. He's very good at lying, for he has had lots of practice.

[Lots of practice? Oh, now you're trying to make this hard for me! That fairy-tale narrator's not that good—I told better stories to my granddaughter when-]

He'll even use humor and snark to get you to leave.

[Please. You're the last one in the delusion. Just walk out.]

Don't leave. Or Santa's sacrifice will be for nothing.

[Stop your guilt-inducing gibberrish! You're just a program the Krampus set to keep these people trapped!]

Do not listen to the Valeyard's lies! Stay in this room. Trust me.

[Leave that room. Trust me.]


End file.
